Week 47: 50 A;bums That Changed Music

[Swish]

With only a few weeks remaining, the Guardian comes up with a very good choice this week, albeit and obvious one that can be found on just about any critically acclaimed list of rock music. Not saying I disagree with the choice, just that it doesn't take much thought to come up with it. Nirvana - Nevermind (1991)

You might argue that Nirvana's landmark album changed nothing whatsoever. All their best seditious instincts came to nothing, after all. And yet Nevermind still rocks mightily, capturing a moment when the vituperative US underground imposed its agenda on the staid mainstream. Without this...no Seattle scene, no Britpop, no Pete Doherty.


Your thoughts?

G Swish

[Monkey Bones]

Without this...no Seattle scene, no Britpop, no Pete Doherty.

I thought the Stone Roses were Britpop? But I get the point, there was a big resurgence in Britpop after Nirvana broke huge worldwide, to try and reinvigorate the UK music scene. Didn't translate very well over here until after Cobain died, and sadly in retrospect, nothing coming from the Britpop scene matched the best of Nirvana back in those days. Then again, nothing in rock music matched the best of Nirvana back then.

[Rae]

Nothing coming from the Britpop scene matched the best of Nirvana back in those days. Then again, nothing in rock music matched the best of Nirvana back then.

Amen! This doesn't get said enough. Everybody wants to talk about Nirvana's place in musical history but nobody wants to talk about Nirvana's music.

~Rae

[3-LockBox]

There was actually some backlash towards Nevermind when it came out (up here anyway) because Nirvana was given credit for creating the grunge sound, when they kind came late in the Seattle underground scene. I never saw it that way. Nirvana was influenced by their surroundings for sure, but they did it better. I was a big fan of Bleach when it came out.

Funny thing is, an older Navy friend of mine bought it thinking it was an old band from the '60s (partially due to the cover's somewhat psychadelic look). I heard him playing it and asked, "what group is that?" and he turned and looked at me as if he could just ****. Needless to say he was not prepared for what the contents of the Bleach album. However, it piqued my curiosity as I had been delving into underground rock within the past year up to that point.

One of my other Navy buddies was into the Seattle underground scene (since he was from there and we were stationed not to far from there), and I had been picking up on some of his stuff. He was already hip to Bleach, but wasn't overly impressed. I liked it though. My friend was more impressed with other Seattle groups starting out around this time, like Soundgarden (the Ultramega OK album), and Mother Love Bone, which he loved, and I thought was poor man's Guns-N-Roses, and an L.A. band called Jane's Addiction. Just a few short months later, I left the Navy and my older friend gave me his Bleach CD as a going away present (actually I already had it, having borrowed it and not returning it, he told me just to keep it).

I kinda fell out of the underground thing for a while, but then in '91, Nirvana exploded. Yeah, some people resented their fast rise to fame, but I thought the album was brilliant. I never considered their correlation to the Brit-pop renaissance of the mid to late '90s....hhmm...

It's a good call, for once...a slam dunk really.

Better than that stoopid Spice Girls album that MGH likes so much.

[unleasHell]

I don't live in Seattle, but I always thought of Nirvana ushering in the Grunge Movement..
important album...